Heidelberg
University city on the Neckar and residence of the electors Palatine. The Heidelberg Catechism was prepared here and published in 1563 with the preface of the elector Frederick III.
Heidelberg lies on the river Neckar in south-western Germany. In the sixteenth century it was the seat of the electors Palatine and of a university. Frederick III of the Palatinate dated his preface to the catechism here on 19 January 1563 and names “our entire theological faculty in this place” among those who prepared it (Frederick III, Preface to the Heidelberg Catechism in Richards, pp. 193–199). See the Heidelberg Catechism.
What happened here
- 19 January 1563, firm dateThe Heidelberg Catechism
In January 1563 the elector Frederick III issues a catechism for the churches and schools of the Palatinate. Its 129 questions, beginning with the believer’s ‘only comfort in life and in death’, become a confession of Reformed churches.